Dallydoo

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Radiant Floor Heating

Concrete floors? Brrrr! Cold. Impersonal. Hard. Yuck.

Not so fast! In and of itself, a concrete floor is everything described above. Guilty as charged. However, floors are rarely a system unto themselves. Nobody walks on wood floors. Wood is simply the substrate beneath the tile, the linoleum, the carpet, etc. Similarly, concrete simply serves as the base beneath the walking surfaces in your home. Concrete can serve as the walking surface. There are excellent treatments for concrete to create some incredibly beautiful surfaces. Check out the Concrete Network for some incredible examples of what can be done with concrete.

A beautiful concrete floor is still a concrete floor, and barring an adequate heating system, it's still going to be cold and hard, but it doesn't have to be. Coverings are going to help with the issue of hardness, but a system that can help significantly with temperature in concrete floors is radiant floor heating.

Radiant floor heating (RFH) in a concrete floor is generally a network of tubing running back and forth through the concrete. A fluid is pumped through the tubing to heat or cool the floor of the room through which the tubing is run. This type of heating is considered by those who are familiar with the heat to be a more comfortable form of heat. The reason this form of heating and cooling is more comfortable is because the heating and cooling are delivered where it is most needed. Generally, this is around the feet (where we are more inclined to need the heating and cooling) versus the head where we generally prefer it to be cooler. Additionally, the heat is radiated rather than blown. Blown heat dries nasal passages and fills the air with dust and other allergens.

If you reviewed the Radiantec link above, you'll note that it does not have to be run through a concrete floor. It can be run under a wooden floor, even an existing wooden floor. If you are a DIY'er there are even systems where you can install this yourself. www.radiantdiy.com is a site where such a system can be found. Currently, the site is not available and I do not know when it will be available. It is a sister site of www.geothermaldiy.com that I will review at a later time. I think you might even be able to buy a system and install it yourself through Radiantec and other radiant floor dealers as well.

Besides being comfortable, RFH requires less energy to deliver more comfort. Combined with an energy efficient system (EE water heater, solar, wind, geothermal, etc.), RFH can provide significant energy savings. More comfortable, healthier, more energy efficient, and more economical - it's a winner anyway you slice it.

Labels: concrete floor, geothermal, radiant floor heating